Israel Revives Idea of Local Palestinian Voting

By WILLIAM E. SCHMIDT,

Published: April 23, 1992

HEBRON, Israeli-Occupied West Bank, April 21—
Ten years after Israel abolished local elections in the occupied territories, denouncing them as a platform for Palestinian radicals, Israeli officials are talking to Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip about again choosing their own mayors and town councils.

In a move apparently tied to the Middle East peace talks that resume next week in Washington, ranking Defense Ministry officials are publicly telling groups of Arabs here in Hebron and elsewhere that they are willing to replace Israeli-appointed municipal administrators installed in the early 1980's with popularly elected Arab councils. The new councils would deal with roads, school construction and other services in their areas.

Gen. Danny Rothschild, the ministry's civil administrator in the West Bank and Gaza, said he had made a definite offer of new elections in a recent meeting with Palestinians here in Hebron.

"I have said it clearly," he said in an interview. "If people in a certain town wish to launch an election campaign for municipal councils, we will accept it. It is now up to them to decide." Arab Distrust

But while the proposal would seem on the surface to satisfy a longstanding Palestinian demand, the restoration of local democratic government, it has provoked suspicion among Arabs. Some of them fear that Israel is trying to exploit their political differences.

In interviews, members of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Hebron, who have become a growing voice in civic affairs and who dominate the city's newly chosen Chamber of Commerce, say they favor local elections. They argue that such voting is needed to help restore public facilities and services.

But others, including nationalists closely allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization, argue that Israel is offering the elections only as a political ploy, one intended to limit Arab autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza to areas within existing municipal boundaries.

Officials here say privately that Israeli negotiators are considering whether to place a formal proposal for municipal elections on the negotiating table next week in Washington.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir strongly reaffirmed his intention not to surrender overall Israeli control. "The areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza will remain ours for ever and ever," he declared at a meeting with Jewish settlers, adding later to reporters: "They will not be returned. We are not settling to return them. We are settling to live there."

During the most recent round of Mideast talks, the Palestinians proposed the election of a 180-member assembly to take over interim administration of the territories during a transitional period. Israel rejected the idea.

Earlier this week, Haidar Abdel-Shafi, chief of the Palestinian delegation at the peace conference, charged in an interview in a Jerusalem newspaper, Al Fajr, that Israel was using municipal elections as a distraction.

"Israel wants to diminish the value of the current talks," he said, "and wants to convince the population that they have no choice but to agree to autonomy, and that municipal elections are the name of the game."

Ahmed Hamze Natshe, a longtime P.L.O. backer in Hebron, said Israel was trying to exploit differences between Islamic fundamentalists and the P.L.O., in the hope that Islamic candidates would dominate new town governments and weaken P.L.O. influence.

There have been no municipal elections in the occupied territories since 1976, when voters chose many P.L.O.-backed candidates. Later, Israeli military authorities dismissed many of the local officials, including the mayors of El Bireh, Ramallah and Nablus, and suspended further voting. They contended that the balloting had not been democratic, but instead represented "elections held under terrorism, intimidation, bribery."

Now, General Rothschild, carrying out an initiative offered several months ago by Defense Minister Moshe Arens, said the Government is acting in response to quieter conditions in the territories, after more than four years of the Palesintian uprising.